Windsor Law students now have the opportunity to learn Indigenous legal traditions through an intensive four-day Anishinaabe Law Camp on Walpole Island First Nation.
The Anishinaabe Law Camp, Pii ki giiigidod, N bizendaami: When Earth Speaks, We Listen, offers a unique and personal approach to reconciliation-related teaching and learning experiences.
The camp, introduced to faculty members in 2016 by Professor Valarie Waboose, an Anishinaabe-Kwe and long-term resident of Walpole Island First Nation, left such a meaningful impact on participants that the camp is now being offered to upper-year students for course credit. Students learn how Anishinaabe law operates and how it can be found in traditional stories, the environment, treaties, declarations, and customs.
“Reading about Indigenous Legal Traditions is only part of the equation,” says Waboose, “to actually be in a natural setting, experiencing the spiritual aspects of Anishinaabe life ways and learning about Indigenous legal traditions from Indigenous teachers is central to a deeper understanding of Anishinaabe Law.”
Windsor Law, which sits on the traditional territory of the Three Fires Confederacy, comprised of the Ojibway, the Odawa, and the Potawatomi, has a strong commitment to enhance Indigenous voices and scholarship in the Windsor community and within the legal profession.
In addition to learning about Indigenous culture and legal traditions in the classroom, students can also learn from the Faculty’s Elder in Residence, Myrna Kicknosway who visits the school once a month.